Our Towns; Where Snow Is Stubborn, Skiers Can Be Stubborner

By PETER APPLEBOME

Published: April 13, 2005

THE Yankees are at Fenway. The Mets are at Shea. The willows are turning green, the forsythia yellow. Everything from the calendar to your hay fever says it's spring.

But Bob Redding surveys the vestigial island of white in the middle of the green and brown Catskill landscape and figures, praise the Lord, it's still winter.

''There are two seasons: six months of pleasure and six months of bugs,'' said Mr. Redding, 60, of nearby Boiceville, as he took off his boots yesterday morning in the nearly empty ski lodge at Belleayre Mountain. ''And there are two kinds of skiers: skiers and fanatics. I'm a fanatic. I opened this place in November, and I'll be here until it closes.''

That figures to come this weekend with the flourish of a last-day golf tournament in the snow. Still, for a hardy few diehards like Mr. Redding, it is still, improbably, ski season, at least at Belleayre, two and a half hours north of Manhattan. The reprieve is a testament to 3,429 feet of altitude, the technology of long-lasting boutique snowmaking and the combination of free time and free will that has a remnant of skiers still reading the ski reports instead of dancing on winter's grave.

''I've only been skiing for three years, so I'm making up for 40 years of lost time,'' said Gwenn Sorensen, a 52-year-old chef from Stone Ridge, as she waxed her skis yesterday morning. ''It's quiet, you're outside, it's good exercise, it's peaceful and cheating Mother Nature is a heck of a thrill.''

In truth, spring skiing makes a lot more sense than seeing your nose turn blue in 5-degree weather in February. But there's something in the human psyche, not to mention the dictates of Mother Nature, that makes most people want to turn the page come April. Belleayre, operated by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, is the only ski area still open in New York, and only a few, like Killington and Stowe, are still open in Vermont.

For Belleayre, which is finishing its busiest year ever, opening early in the season and staying open late is part of a marketing plan. The idea is not just to add more days in April, but also to attract more skiers who will come in March, figuring the skiing must be pretty good if the place will still be open for another month.

''We operate near capacity in January and February,'' said Tony Lanza, Belleayre's superintendent. ''The only way we bring in more people is to keep going as long as we can.''

It's not as though there were a lot of skiers around yesterday -- maybe 100 -- with an optimistic estimate of 1,500 expected over the weekend, compared with 12,000 during the peak months. Yesterday's visitors included Jerry Dambrosia, an emergency room doctor who drove up from Manhattan, and Lee Reich, of New Paltz, who writes on gardening and figured he'd ski during the first half of the day and prune his fruit trees in the afternoon.

But most of them were retirees like Jerry Fielding of Monticello.

''Look at this, like skiing in the West, nothing but sunshine,'' said Mr. Fielding, who was almost the only person on a chairlift ascending the hill around noon. ''You know, I have skied and played golf on the same day. How sick am I?''

There are, it must be said, good and not-so-good days this time of year.

''When it gets up to 60 and 70, the snow gets a little mushy, like mashed potatoes,'' said Sil Serrano, assistant director of the ski patrol.

But yesterday, with 30 of 41 trails somehow still open, was perfect. The temperatures dropped below freezing overnight to firm up the snow, reaching only 42 at 2 p.m., with sunshine so intense that sunglasses and sunscreen were more essential than hats and gloves.

YES, green meadow and brown mud were poking at the edges of some of the trails. Yes, the log in the lodge fireplace seemed somewhat gratuitous. And, particularly for the ski staff, there was a bittersweet quality to the whole thing, seeing winter old and toothless, making its last stand with artificial snow and with dozens of snapped or lost poles littering the bare ground under the nearly empty chairlifts.

''I worked 30 years in criminal justice; you fight with criminals, you fight with bureaucrats -- it's one big fight,'' said David Singer, a ski instructor. ''Then you do this, and it's like a dream job. Like a fantasy. It's been a great season. You hate to see it end.''

The only one who was disappointed yesterday was Mr. Redding, the proud fanatic, who, reluctantly, had to leave before noon.

''Think snow,'' he said, before heading out into the gentle chill and blinding April sunshine.

Photo: Jerry Fielding of Monticello took to the slopes yesterday at Belleayre Mountain, in Highmount, the only ski area still open in New York. (Photo by Alan Zale for The New York Times)